


Because He Shattered

by noblydonedonnanoble



Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-08-07
Updated: 2012-08-07
Packaged: 2017-11-11 14:59:16
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 984
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/479743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noblydonedonnanoble/pseuds/noblydonedonnanoble
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>I was asked to write something post-Midnight, and couldn't decide what direction to go with it so I wrote two; this is the second one.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Because He Shattered

                “Did this happen with Rose and Martha, too? After a particularly stressful day, you came to them to _unwind_?”

                “No Donna. Just you.”

                She was disinclined to believe him. The Doctor didn’t particularly care, at that moment, whether she thought he was telling the truth; his mouth was too busy wandering along her collarbone, his hands busy unbuttoning her shirt.

                It had happened before. After Jenny, he had appeared at her door, had her lying naked beneath him practically before she knew what was happening.

                And in all honesty, Donna was not angry. She didn’t want to hurt him, as she would have if something similar happened when they’d first begun traveling together. While she didn’t want to admit it, she was slightly pleased. Mostly, though, she was just confused.

                Confused because she fell asleep in his arms and woke up to see him gone. Because when she bumped into him in the kitchen, he acted as though nothing had happened.

                Perhaps she would have convinced herself that it was just a dream if it weren’t for the bite mark on his neck.

                With the Doctor, though, she had to tread carefully, so she followed his lead.

                Nothing happened after the library, although from the way he looked at her, she wondered if he considered it.

                This time, she was ready. He came back to her shattered, and this was inevitable.

                “What makes me so special?” she muttered. Because she didn’t believe him, and if he was going to lie she expected it to be convincing.

                Or perhaps because it scared her that the Doctor could even possibly be telling the truth.

                He’d worked her shirt all the way open and managed to remove it for her. He tossed it onto a chair. “Do you really want to discuss this now?”

                “Yes, because I don’t want you running away and pretending nothing happened.” Even as she said it, she was pulling off his jacket, and tugging at the buttons of his shirt so unceremoniously that it was a miracle none were torn loose.

                The Doctor caught her hands halfway down his chest and held them there, looking at her closely. “Donna, this wasn’t going to happen again. I… I lost control. Before. I wasn’t going to do anything else, because I didn’t want to hurt you.”

                It scared her, how genuine he sounded. All of a sudden, she wasn’t sure that she wanted him to continue. “You hurt me by pretending that nothing had _happened_ , Doctor! How is that better?”

                “Because…” He swallowed. “Because everything that touches me dies. Even when people don’t die… So often I leave them worse than I found them.” The Doctor’s thumb brushed her hand softly. “I don’t want to see you follow that path too.”

                “But what, you faced your own mortality and felt the need for another roll in the hay?”

                “Would it kill you to stop being confrontational for just this moment?”

                He was shouting. Donna didn’t like it when the Doctor shouted. Normally, she was willing to shout back, but she still didn’t’ like it when he raised his voice. Softly, she said, “Okay, Spaceman. What’s so different, then?”

                “You’re different. The timing’s different… _I’m_ different.”

                Donna was still dwelling on why he’d never done something like this with Rose and Martha, so she raised her eyebrows at him. “ _You’re_ different, Doctor?”

                “When I was on that shuttle… when that _thing_ took away my words. Do you want to know what I thought of?” He released her hands, went to work on the rest of his shirt and then discarded it. “All the things I never got to say to you. Because even though I talk all the time, I don’t say anything.”

                “Really.” The word came out as little more than a whisper.

                “Yes.” His hands went to his trousers, which he unbuttoned and unzipped. “I thought of the times you looked stunning and I didn’t say so.” Kicked the trousers away, moved on to Donna’s. “I thought of how I still haven’t convinced you how brilliant you are.” He waited until her trousers were on the floor beside his before continuing. “I thought of the times I almost told you there wasn’t a woman in the world so important to me as you, but put it off for another day.”

                Donna saw very clearly where this was going, but wondered if he would hesitate or even falter. But as he slid his pants down, she followed his lead, removing her bra and knickers. “And what else?” she pressed.

                Silently, he pulled her onto her bed. He laid down across it, brought her along with him. When he was only a few centimeters from her lips, he whispered, “I love you, Donna Noble.”

                Again, as he kissed her from her neck, from her clavicle to her sternum. As he sucked at her nipples, and planted kisses across her stomach. “I love you. I love you. I’m so in love with you I don’t know how I ever lived without you.”

                Donna took it all in—his mouth wandering, those words hitting her ears over and over, the feel of her heart absolutely pounding in her chest. But it wasn’t until he’d explored every inch of her and returned for another kiss that she said it, “I love you.”

                Yes, it had happened before. But the feel of the Doctor inside her… It was so entirely different that it may as well have been the first time.

                And even though she still didn’t think of herself as beautiful, or brilliant, or important, he did.

                Maybe Donna could be convinced. Eventually.

                The two of them climaxed together, Donna’s name coming from his lips and the Doctor’s name flying from hers.

                Staring up at the ceiling, Donna said with a smile, “So what other things occurred to you on the shuttle that you wanted to tell me?”


End file.
